All Forum Posts by: James Stoughton

Kenneth, where are you getting 500 a month in profit? Are you buying for cash? Just going with the 50% rule for expenses leaves $850 a month for your mortgage. At a selling price between 140-160k I'm guessing you would be around $600-$700 a month for a loan payment. That leaves maybe 100-250 a month profit. Now if you manage it yourself then you can save on the expenses but I think you should always budget for management. Just my .02

welcome from yorba linda!

I don't have one yet but I should be closing on a quad in a week or so. It's out of state. I think you really have to weigh the benefits/costs. To me, California is too expensive at this time but I hope to buy here eventually.

Hey Kenneth, good luck in your endeavors... You wouldn't happen to any properties a little farther north like in the Bangor area would you??

welcome! I think it depends on what you want to do. Rental properties usually require less of your time whereas flipping can be a full time job. What are your goals in real estate?

Thank you for the advice everyone. I guess my thinking on the expenses is that one half of the roof was replaced a few years ago and I plan on doing the other half once we close. And the heating system is fairly new so that limits the amount of expense in that area. I'm only using 10% as an estimate because I've seen it used on these forums. As this is my first property I'm flying by the seat of my pants a bit. Just part of the learning curve I guess!

I forgot to mention that I had an inspection last week and there is about 15-20k needed in repairs, most of which I already knew about and factored into my offer. The one thing that I did not expect was the recommendation to replace all the wiring in the whole house. I believe its knob and (tube?)... don't know too much about electrical. Has anyone had any experience with this and was it worth it in the end?

Last week I placed my first offer on a property. Asking price was 116,000 and my offer of 100,000 was accepted. Its a 4 unit apartment building with 2 2 br units and 2 3br units. Anyway, here are the numbers.

Monthly rent- 3,400 or 40,800 annually

Expenses yearly approx. 25,000

Heat: 8,000

Taxes: 2,700

Insurance: 1,600

Vacancy (10%): 4,080

Maintenance: (10%) 4080

Management (10%) 4080

Misc: 1,000

So it looks like I'll have around 15,000 before mortgage. I'm working on a loan of 4.25% with a mortgage around 450 a month or 5400 a year so I think I should be around 9,000 a year. Is there anything major that I am missing?

thank you for the welcome.

Timothy-- Bangor does seem to have some deals but the downside is that usually the landlord pays for heating. I'm finding this can cost upwards of maybe 8-10 thousand a year. But I'm just starting to get my feet wet so we'll see how it goes.

I'm looking in the Bangor area.

Hi all, I've been lurking on this forum for a while and have learned a great deal. I decided it was finally time to jump in and introduce myself....

First off, I am originally from Maine but have spent the last 10 years in California. I'm looking to buy and hold multi family units. Maine is my target area since the prices in CA are really high.

Anyway, I look forward to conversing with everyone and sharing the wealth of knowledge of this great community. James